The use of search engines (e.g., Google™, Ask Jeeves™, Yahoo™, etc.) has become ubiquitous for today's Internet users. Such search engines provide convenient means for locating resources of interest among the ever growing number of Internet-accessible Web sites. However, because of the vast number of such sites catalogued or otherwise made accessible by these search engines, users are often confronted with large numbers of results in response to search queries. Often, many of these search results are not relevant to the original queries.
Moreover, the Internet is growing rapidly in terms of the amount of hosted information available to users, yet the access/interface to such information remains somewhat restrictive. For example, RSS feeds provide pages with densely packed links and users are expected to click through to or open a new tab or window for each feed of interest. This need to click through or open new tabs (or maximize new windows or windows that cover the parent/original page without giving the user a choice to do otherwise) causes the user to lose the context of his/her original search. Compounding this problem, to get back to the original workspace the user is sometimes forced to reload the original page.
An example of the above-described inefficiencies in browsing is illustrated in FIG. 1. Shown is a list of search results (i.e., displayed in a browser running on a user's computer) that has been returned in response to a search query. Not all of the search results returned in response to the user's search query are necessarily relevant to that query. However, it is often difficult for the searcher to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant results because of the limited information returned by the search engine in a results page 10. For example, such results pages often provide only a list of hyperlinks to the target web pages associated therewith. In some cases, a few lines of text clipped from the target web page will be presented along with the associated hyperlink, however, this text is usually limited to a few words which may or may not help the searcher in assessing the relevancy of the returned result.
In the example shown in FIG. 1, search results page 10 was returned in response to a search query directed to “flat screen lcd” (in the examples presented herein a Google search result page is used, however, the present invention is applicable to any search results page returned from any search engine and, indeed, to any web page whether or not it is a search results page). Links 12a-12e to target web sites are displayed along the left side of the page while links 14a-14f to commercial sites are displayed along the right side of the page. The modest amount of text displayed in conjunction with each of the result links provides the searcher with little or no information on which to base a decision as to the relevance of the associated web page/site vis-à-vis the searcher's search. To fully determine whether or not the result is truly relevant the searcher must actually click through to the target web page associated with the link.
The so-called “sponsored links” (14a-14f and 16a-16b) displayed on the top and right side of the search results page 10 are usually associated with commercial entities that pay for the privilege of having their links appear in these prominent locations on the search results page. The links are said to be “sponsored” because the advertiser pays the search engine provider to insure that the link to the target web site appears in the designated location. Payment for this “sponsorship” may be based on either or both of a “cost per million” (CPM) or “cost per click” (CPC) model. In the CPM model, advertisers pay based on the number of “impressions” or number of times their sponsored link is presented in conjunction with a search result page. In the CPC model, advertisers pay for actual click-throughs to the target web site associated with the sponsored list.
Both the CPC and CPM models are inefficient. From the search engine provider's point of view the CPC model is inefficient because valuable search result page real estate must be devoted to sponsored links even if the user does not click through to the target web pages and the provider is not compensated for the display of the sponsored link. From the advertiser's point of view the CPM model is inefficient because advertisers must pay for display of their sponsored links even if those links fail to generate any actual user traffic to the target web sites. From the searcher's standpoint both models are inefficient because the information presented is so minimal as to make it virtually impossible to know whether or not the linked site is truly relevant.
Further, the present interfaces to the Internet make extracting information somewhat restrictive and often involve multiple steps. For example, saving an image from a Web page accessed via the Internet requires a user to right-click a mouse (or similar cursor control device) and specify a file name and storage location for a local copy of the image to be saved. In obtaining any necessary information the user often must employ many mouse clicks and cursor scrolls. For example, visiting multiple search results and sub-results (links within the results) before finding the desired information. Often the user is presented with too much information as well. For example, image results returned by conventional search engines or sites present the entire original Web page containing the image, instead of just the image and some information along with it.
In addition, the “point of information share”, such as email or instant messaging is very disconnected from “the point of navigation and consumption”. For example, sharing a link with oneself or others requires a user to copy and paste the link into a new message window in the user's email client. There is also no easy, intuitive method of sharing multiple files, links, text, images or videos.
Furthermore, the “point of access to references”, such as a search engine interface or other Web site, is also very disconnected from “the point of navigation”. For example, looking up a definition for a word or phrase requires a user to open a new window or tab to conduct a search, needlessly taking the user away from the context of his/her navigation.
Geisler described a conceptual framework for enriching Web links by displaying small, information-rich visualizations—pop-up views—that provide a user with information about linked pages that can be used to evaluate the appropriateness of the pages before making a commitment to select the link and wait for the page to load. See, e.g., Gary Geisler, “Enriched Links: A Framework For Improving Web Navigation Using Pop-Up Views” (2000). Three types of pop-up views were described: Preview pop-up views consisted of thumbnail imaged of the linked page; Overview pop-up views provided a more detailed summary of the objects that make up a linked page; and History pop-up views used Web access log data to give the user an indication of how the linked page has been accessed by other users. Importantly, the enriched links with pop-up views as described by Geisler required that two significant operations occur on the host Web server. First, the to data displayed on the pop-up views had to be pre-generated and saved, and second the Web server configuration was required to be modified to append this data to the requested Web page at the time of the request.
Brunk et al. generalized the discussion of previews and the like in describing so-called “agileviews”, which provide a framework for interfaces that permit flexible control over different views for an information space. See, e.g., Gary Marchionini, Gary Geisler & Ben Brunk, “Agileviews: A Human-Centered Framework for Interfaces to Information Spaces”. Technical Report TR 2000-01, University of North Carolina (January 2000).